One Photo, Many Words

From the New York Public Library collection of Wurts Brothers photos, October 3, 1924, ” 140 West 137th Street (7th Avenue – Lenox Avenue)”:

The building under construction is the Mother African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, also known as the Mother Zion Church. The congregation dates back to the eighteenth century, and this building has now been its home for the past century. From the outside it looks like a fairly traditional masonry church, but as the photo above shows, it’s actually a modern steel-framed building. A good place to start is the annotation at the bottom of the photo. On the left, the date and the Wurts Brothers’ name. In the center, “Mother of [sic] Zion M. E. Church, West 137th St. N.Y.C. / Scaffold inside auditorium. From S.E. Corner looking N.W.” followed by the date and time. On the right, “Miller-Reed Co. / – Builders – / 103 Park Avenue. N.Y.C.”

Some thoughts, not very much in order:

• That’s some impressive scaffold, built of heavy timbers, 2xs or 3xs, and plank. It’s about the right height for the roof of the building, so it may be more or less complete in the vertical direction, although it is obviously not complete horizontally.
• The church sanctuary has a theater-style layout, with a main level facing the pulpit and a horse-shoe shaped balcony above. The sloped steel beams that are so prominent in the photo are the primary framing for the balcony. Note the curved steel beam at the free inside edge of the balcony. The seating tiers would later be built up on top of those sloped beams.
• The big steel columns on the right are probably roof-truss supports, not yet in use.
• The caption mistake in the name of the church, and the name on the right make it clear that the Wurts Brothers had been hired Miller-Reed, a general contracting company. Their address is notable as well: 101 Park Avenue, AKA The Architects Building, was constructed in 1912 and was occupied, as you might expect, by a bunch of architectural firms. 103 Park was its immediate neighbor to the north. Both buildings were demolished around 1980 for the much larger tower that is now at that location. Having an office within a one-minute walk of architects’ offices was certainly not a bad thing for Miller-Reed.